The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1887-12-02
TEMPERANCE.
A MOTHERS INFLUENCE.
Moral Training In the Home an Element
OF Temperance work.

text books
And the faithful mother. in at least
the first half dozen years of her baby's
life. will learn more lessons than she
teaches the child.
Very likely she has said to herself in
view of some of her husbands peculiar
tiles: ''Oh that might have had part
in your early training"
Perhaps when she sees the same
traits in her boy she repeats the wish.
But rs the years 60 on. and she sees,
not only her own peculiarities in the
child, but also the defects of her char
acter III his training, she may say, in
reimbursement: "Oh that l could be-
gin life again! might have done
more to improve my mind; l might
have trained my body and made it
stronger. could have corrected and
nodded my unbalanced temperament;
and my children would have been the
better for these self-improvemcnts.
! We are not fit to have our children un-
! less we have prepared ourselves for the
| trust"
fore we realize tho part that our char
acter will play in their destiny, we can
only do our best with the material that
we have. Every child has both good
and evil in his nature, and which we
will draw out depends largely upon
! ourselves.
| We may not, as it is said. learn n
language easily after we are twenty,
! and we may not be what we might have
been morally. But we can train our
children the more faithfully because of
realizing our own shortcomings
An important part in the mothers
work is the training and educating of
healthy bodies. In rightly developing
the physical nature of her children she
is doing much 10 develop their moral
nature. "A sound mind is II sound
body" is trite saying. Those in
charge of incbriatc asylumS regard in
temperance rs bodily and mental, rs
well as moral disease, and they think
the matter of diet of great Importance.
The regimen laid down is: Meat only
once n day, and then beef or mutton
| preferable, boiled or roasted. never
fried or highly seasoned, and never
allowed to include pork in any form;
much fruit, vegetables and grains. but
no pastry" In short, nothing that de-
mands unnatural labor of the digestive
organs, or that creates unnatural thirst.
| Though the remark that youth is
the time for Improvement. is II com
mon one, it may be doubted if we re-
alze how much more plastic the mind
| is in childhood than later on in life.
! Early impressions have Il security of
hold upon the mind greater than those
received in mature years. That
[ provincial accent or common errors in
language are seldom cradicat d after
one has grown to maturity prove this.
That moral training which has for
its end the building up of II sound
moral character in our children will
not only BE- an element of Temperance
work, but il must of necessity have
! temperance work us IN element If
we have right principles ourselves, IL
is easy to teach our children right
principle, of action. But to train
them to act from these principles re-
quircs eXhaustlcss patience and will
power on their part us on our own
Not until il is easier for them to do
right than it is to do wrong is our
training successful Moral attainment,
like intellectual and artistic. is the re-
suit of doing over and over again the
things that We ought To do. and resist
ing again and again the temptation to
do the things that we ought not to do.
Repeated acts become habits, aud
habits form character.
"But," says some dishoartened
mother, "it Is easy enough to write
what is good to do. but it seems, some
times, as though no other evil has so
many allied powers as that of in
temperance. Often the hard lot or
evil surroundings and companions. of
inherited tendency and parental ex-
ample, of poverty and i'll health. rises
up against one. And. when all these
things are TO be met. even "a mother
can DO Little TO conquer them"
Indeed she can do much. The in
spiratiou of real life, filled with that
hcroism which conquers circumstances
to win success. IS better than any pa
per upon ethics. But a few days ago
we folded for their last rest the hands
Of mother, the story Of whose deter
mined and successful struggle with adj
verse circumstances would cheer the
faintcst hearted. She was left without
father or mother at AN early age, and
when Cnly eighteen she married man